


My Home, Where Dreams Are Born

by gamerfic



Category: Wendy Trilogy - S. J. Tucker (Song Cycle)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Kissing, Misses Clause Challenge, Post-Canon, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2798144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/pseuds/gamerfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even in Neverland, where anything is possible, Jane the pirate doesn't always feel like she fits in. A talk with her beloved Green-Eyed Sue helps her to see things in a new light.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Home, Where Dreams Are Born

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LeaperSonata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeaperSonata/gifts).



The _Jolly Roger_ catches up to the goblin vessel in the deep, clear turquoise waters that surround the Silver Archipelago of Faerieland. From her place beside her captain on the stern deck, Jane can see the small green creatures scrambling across the deck of their ship and up and down the rigging, adjusting the sails in a desperate attempt to catch the breeze and escape. It's futile, of course - few ships in Neverland or Faerieland can hope to match the _Jolly Roger_ for speed, even with favorable winds and a head start. The goblin ship has neither, and her crew knows it. Already they are strapping on their weapons, preparing for a fight at closer quarters.

Green-Eyed Sue, the captain of the _Jolly Roger_ , lowers her spyglass. She cannot conceal the grin that spreads across her face. "We have them now. Bring us up alongside, Rosa," she says to the Lost Girl at the helm. Then she turns to Jane and adds, "And Jane, tell your marines to prepare for a fight."

"Aye, Captain," Jane and Rosa say in unison. Jane descends the stairs to the main deck, looking back when she reaches the bottom to give Sue a small smile and a crisp salute. Sue responds with a quick wink before it's back to work for the both of them, Sue shouting out a string of orders to Lost Girls all around the ship as Jane musters her marines. They're drawing ever nearer to the goblin ship, close enough to see the worried expressions on the wrinkled green faces of its crew and to hear the rapid-fire exclamations that they exchange in their faerie language. Standing by the rail, awaiting orders, Jane has one of those all-too-frequent moments in which she realizes that this is her life now: sailing through the lands of Faerie on a magic ship with a crew of brave pirate girls, taking the occasional break from their random acts of mayhem to do battle against impossible creatures in service of the Faerie Queen. Even harder to believe is that she's the one who chose to be here.

"Lost Girls!" cries Green-Eyed Sue, and dozens of pairs of eyes turn to focus on her. "Let's show these goblin scum what happens to anyone who preys on the Queen's fleet. Ready the cannons!" A cheer goes up from the mass of girls and they explode into action, clambering up the rigging or crowding along the rail or scampering below decks to load and prepare the _Jolly Roger_ 's guns. Sue directs Rosa to brings the helm around until the two vessels are side by side. There is a moment of unexpected stillness. Then Sue yells, "Fire broadside!"

The Lost Girls pass the order from stern to bow, across the decks and down into the hold. There is a long low sizzle and then a series of deafening booms as the _Jolly Roger_ 's cannons fire, blasting holes in the side of the goblin ship. The goblins retaliate in turn, as Jane knows they must - but faerie magic has made the _Jolly Roger_ 's hull stronger than any normal wood could ever be, and the goblins' cannons do only superficial damage at best. A far bigger threat is the boarding party which the goblins have assembled along their ship's rail. Goblin fighters are readying their nets and hooks and ladders with a fierce gleam in their beady black eyes. Jane draws her cutlass. "Marines, prepare to be boarded!" she shouts as the first enemy grappling hook bounces over the side and lands on the deck at her feet.

There's no time to think for a while after that. The goblins have realized that their ship doesn't have the firepower to repel the _Jolly Roger_ , so they throw all their strength into a hand-to-hand fight. Lost Girl archers send down precisely aimed arrows from their perches in the crow's nests and the rigging as the goblin boarding party pours over the rail, thinning the enemy's numbers. Then Jane's marines take over, beating the goblins back with swords and clubs, hatchets and polearms. The goblins outnumber the Lost Girls, but they are a chaotic and undisciplined mob of a fighting force, unprepared to confront a well-trained band of sisters fighting as a unit. Jane has hand-picked her marines from among the oldest and physically strongest Lost Girls, and most of them are half a head or more taller than even the largest goblins. Thanks to the girls' greater reach and better preparation, most of the goblins are soon fleeing back to their own ship or throwing down their arms in surrender.

All the while, Sue has been ordering the artillery crew to reload the cannons, and the imminent threat of another salvo from the _Jolly Roger_ 's guns leads the goblins to run up the white flag and request a parlay. Sue approaches the rail to talk things over with the goblin captain, while Jane and her marines guard the tied-up and disarmed members of the boarding party and the archers nock arrows in their bows to keep everybody honest. Sue doesn't have to do much more than mention her status as Fleet Admiral of Faerieland to extract the goblins' promise to never again take any cargo bearing Queen Titania's mark from a vessel that flies her flag, even if that vessel has run aground on the archipelago's amber and opal reefs and the goblins would typically consider boarding it to be a fair and legal exercise of their salvage rights. "This may sound strange coming from a pirate," Green-Eyed Sue concludes, "but next time, you might consider helping the queen's ship instead, don't you think? I promise you, she can give you rewards far more valuable than anything you'll find in any freighter's hold. I've learned Her Majesty's lessons well myself." She scratches her chin, pretending to think. "All the same, I think we should teach you a lesson of our own about how material things don't last forever. Lost Girls! Take them for all they've got!"

The Lost Girls are all too happy to do as they are told. After they have stripped the goblin ship of everything even remotely valuable, they return the prisoners to their greatly lightened vessel and send them on their way. Jane watches as the goblins limp away, fishing fallen crewmates out of the shallow water as they go; creatures of Faerie are virtually impossible to kill permanently while they remain in Faerieland. The Lost Girls, being human, have no such advantages, and Jane always worries for them even in small skirmishes like this one. But their training has paid off, and bruises, twisted ankles, and a few minor cuts are the worst injuries of the day. Jane sends any marine who looks especially uncomfortable off to see the ship's doctor, and enthusiastically praises all of them for their efforts and their success.

As Jane leads her marines in cleaning and maintaining their arms and armor and storing them in the weapons lockers, her other shipmates bustle around her. Rosa is still at the helm, deftly adjusting the _Jolly Roger_ 's course to steer her back to Neverland as other pirates unfurl and brace more canvas at the sailmistress's command. A small army of Lost Girls assembles to perform an inventory of the newly acquired cargo, to move it below decks, and to store it neatly and properly in the hold so that the ship can keep its balance atop the waves. Carpenters seize their toolboxes and begin tending to the damage dealt by the goblin vessel's guns; although the ship needs only superficial repairs, Green-Eyed Sue knows how quickly small problems can turn into big ones at sea, and insists that the _Jolly Roger_ be in its best possible condition at all times. There are sails to be mended, meals to be cooked, decks to be swabbed. While the ship is in motion, the work never stops either, and Jane throws herself into every task she can find with abandon. Better to keep busy now than to be alone with her thoughts.

The sun is beginning to slip below the horizon when Green-Eyed Sue finds Jane in the shadow of the foremast, helping a few of the youngest Lost Girls to wind stray ropes into neat coils. Sue taps her on the shoulder. When Jane looks up, Sue smiles and offers her a steaming wooden bowl of stew. "You missed the dinner bell," Sue says. "I wouldn't want you to go hungry."

Jane smiles back, grateful to finally get the chance to talk to Sue. "Thank you," she says, and pulls herself to her feet. She cups her hands around Sue's, which are in turn cupping the bowl, and feels a warmth spreading through her body that has very little to do with the temperature of the stew. They lean toward each other and Sue tilts her head up to meet Jane's gentle kiss. The little Lost Girls titter, as scandalized as if it were their own parents they had caught in a stolen moment, and Jane feels Sue grinning against her mouth.

Sue always enjoys provoking reactions from others, so the kissing goes on perhaps longer than is strictly necessary, not that Jane can complain. When they finally separate, slightly breathless, Sue calls out in mock offense, "What's the matter, little ones, haven't you ever seen two girls in love before?" She punctuates her question with a wink and turns back to Jane. "Let's take a walk, sweetest. These lot seem to have the rope locker well in hand."

Jane and Sue stroll together out to the bow of the _Jolly Roger_ , with Jane devouring the bowl of stew as they go. They gaze out across the water as the sky shifts from clear blue into orange and violet and crimson. Sue stays quiet while Jane finishes her meal. The stew quickly vanishes and Jane sets the bowl down on the deck so that she can slip one hand into Sue's. "Your marines did well today," Sue says, still looking out over the darkening ocean.

Jane nods. "I'm proud of them, too."

The distraction and preoccupation that Jane still feels must be coming through in her voice, because Sue looks at her now with a slight frown. "Hey. Are you all right?"

Jane meets Sue's eyes and doesn't know what to say, so she just lets the first question that comes to her mind fall out of her mouth. "Do you ever miss it?"

Sue's frown deepens. "Miss what?"

"Your family. Your friends. The world we came from. Everything that isn't here."

Sue's eyes harden and she says, without hesitation, "Never." Then she suddenly seems to understand how harsh this might sound, and her face melts into an expression of regret and concern. "But I don't fault it if you do. I understand. I mean, I _don't_ , not necessarily the way you or some of the other girls might, but-"

"Oh, Sue." Jane silences her with a small, swift kiss. "That's not what I meant. I really am happy here, and so much of that is because of you." Another small kiss, on the cheek this time. "It's only - there _are_ things about where I came from that I don't have here. Like my school friends. Or cotton candy. Or walking on a beach without Lost Boys bursting out of the jungle wanting to spar with me. And sometimes I miss those things, and the way my life used to be. Safe, and peaceful, and without too many surprises. Now is one of those times that I miss it, I suppose."

"And do you miss safety so much that you would leave Neverland to have it again?"

"Sometimes." Jane knows that's not the answer that Sue wanted to hear. She looks away before she can see Sue's expression, staring down at the _Jolly Roger_ 's prow as it slices through the white-capped waves. "And other times, I remember how dreary other things could be back there. You know that's why I went with Peter in the first place - to find a place where I could do everything I knew I was capable of doing, even if that meant taking risks and putting myself in danger. I don't know what I think, or what I want. I only know that I need to be home - wherever that might be."

Both of them are silent for a long time, watching the sunset dissolve into the sea as the first stars of evening begin to appear in the sky. Sue reaches for Jane's hand again and Jane lets her take hold of it. She squeezes Sue's fingers in return. "I think," Sue finally says, "that it's never as easy as just one place being your home. Things change, even here. Never growing up doesn't mean you'll stay the same forever, or that you'll always look at things in the same way. Even your dreams become different, after a while. That's what happened with Wendy."

"Really?" Jane says. Sue rarely talks about the former captain of the _Jolly Roger_ , leader of the Lost Girls, and Fleet Admiral of Faerieland. When she does, she usually refers to her not with her birth name but as Red-Handed Jill. Jane knows enough to know that the two of them were very close, in a way that Jane hopes never to envy or begrudge, and that Wendy chose to leave Neverland some time ago for reasons that Sue has hardly ever discussed. Jane lets the silence stretch out before them again, giving Sue as much space as she might need to say as much or as little as she wants to.

Jane has more or less decided that Sue is going to leave it at that when Sue says, "Most people don't understand it. A lot of them don't want to. They assume that she got bored, or homesick, and wanted a normal life again. And I'm sure she felt that way some of the time. But a normal life..." Sue turns to Jane with the fading light etching unusual lines of earnest seriousness into her face. "She didn't leave because she wanted to run away from magic. She left because she had so much magic in her that she wanted to share it with the place that she came from. Her home was always there. She always dreamed of going back to it. I knew what her dream was when we started. And I might as well never have loved her if I'd stopped her from following it."

Jane wishes she could say that she doesn't understand why Wendy would do such a thing, or that she would never dream of leaving Neverland - but she knows that lying is the worst thing she could do right now, so all that she says is, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Sue leans in, wrapping her arms around Jane's waist and nestling her head in the space where Jane's neck and shoulder meet. "I wouldn't trade anything for the time I had with her. But I wouldn't trade having met you, either."

"It's the same for me." Jane presses a gentle kiss to the top of Sue's head. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"What you said just a bit ago, about dreams changing. It was just what I needed to hear. You're right - everything does change, even in Neverland. I don't want everything to be the same forever, or to put a limit on where my dreams might take me. I just want to know that no matter where I go or what I dream, I have a home that I can always come back to." She tips Sue's face up toward her, so that she can meet her eyes. "So it's a good thing that I know where my home is. It's a good thing that my home is you."

This time, the darkness of the moonless, starry sky hides Jane and Green-Eyed Sue from any prying eyes. Lit only by the flickering torches on the deck, they pull each other even closer. Beneath them, the _Jolly Roger_ sails ceaselessly on through the night, charting its swift course back into Neverland and all of its adventures, to the dreams that Jane knows will always await them there.


End file.
